Thursday, July 4, 2013

Europe hit by Snow(den) storm

Wikipedia
defines Paranoia as a thought process believed to be heavily
influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality
and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory
beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat
towards oneself. (e.g. "Everyone is out to get me.") An
interesting example of this was demonstrated by number of European
Governments, who felt mortally scared of getting hit by an imaginary
fear known as the Snow(den) storm and subsequent wrath of US
Government.

It all
started when a a meeting of producer-countries of natural gas, wound
up in Moscow on 2ndJuly 2013 and heads of states attending the
meeting, started to leave Russia by their private aircraft. One
amongst these, was the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, who left
Moscow by his private aircraft to head back home in Latin America. As
his aircraft crossed Russian airspace and entered European airspace,
he had a shock of his life, when one country after another, started
refusing him permission to overfly. France, Italy and Portugal
refused to let his private jet overfly and finally he landed in
Vienna for emergency refuelling, as the plane did not have enough
fuel for the new route that would avoid overflying airspace of
European countries. Austrian authorities refused permission for the
presidential aircraft to take off and searched the aircraft as it
stood on the tarmac, for some 13 hours, and found nothing. The
President called it “a 13-hour kidnap.”

Readers
are bound to wonder, just like me, as to what was all this commotion
or “Halla Bol” for? Why did so many countries pressed the panic
buttons simultaneously? It appears that earlier on 2nd
July 2013, Evo Morales had used a television interview in Moscow to
hint strongly that Bolivia would look favourably on an asylum request
from American whistle-blower Edward Snowden. After this comment,
when Bolivian President's aircraft wanted to enter European airspace,
France, Italy and Portugal evidently feared that Mr. Snowden would
have boarded the presidential aircraft and might ask for a political
asylum upon touching down on European soil. It would have been
difficult for a European Union country to refuse Mr. Snowden
political asylum, because the death penalty remains legal in the U.S.
and all European countries would be virtually obliged to grant asylum
to a person who faced the death penalty back home. Worried of
Washington’s ire, they therefore decided to deny permission for the
Presidential aircraft to overfly.

When
news of this denial of permission and hold up in Austria broke out,
Bolivians fumed and reacted with fury at this insult and disrespect
shown to their president. In a midnight press conference, Bolivian
vice-president Alvaro Garcia said that Italy and Spain had also
denied the plane permission to fly through their airspace. He said;
"President was kidnapped by imperialism in Europe.” The
Bolivian foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, said: "We don't
know who invented this lie. We want to denounce to the international
community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales."
Bolivian defense minister, who was on board said; "This is a
hostile act by the United States state department which has used
various European governments."

Evo
Morales finally left Vienna at around 11.30am local time on 3rd
June after spending 12 hours at the airport.

After
realizing that they have created a faux pas situation,
Europoean government immediately went into fire fighting mode. The
Austrian president, Heinz Fischer, visited Evo Morales at the airport
in the early hours of 3rd June and assured him that the
plane had been cleared to leave. He said later, "The flight
route is normal, as far as I am informed. Spain's airspace is also
open for him. President Evo Morales will resume his trip shortly."
Justifying Austria's actions he said, "our procedures here in
Vienna were all correct."

There
was anger in Bolivia with many citizens afraid that their
President's life was put in danger. In a typical anti US stand,
Bolivia said that rumours about Mr. Snowden being on board the
aircraft were floated by U.S. agents in order to put pressure on
Bolivia and these European countries were manipulated by a foreign
power, namely the USA. Dozens of people demonstrated outside the
French Embassy in La Paz, the Bolivian capital.

2 comments:

Very intersting... wonder why it took 12 hours to get clearance... I mean refuelling and checking of aircraft for the snow should have been a matter of a few hours and once the feared person not found onboard other countries too should have allowed the plane to pass through their airspace!!

The events concerning Bolivian President Evo Morales are very real, very unusual, and a humiliating slap in the face. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for the Communist Government of Evo Morales. But paranoia? The power play that the Obama Administration effected on the world stage by refusing his plane air space rises to the level of political intimidation of the worst kind. When was the last time that the plane carrying a known terrorist, such as the leader of Hamas, the PLO, Hizbulla, or Al-Qaeda was refused airspace? What happened to Evo Morales was an act of aggression, intimidation, and blackmail. According to the U.S. Constitution, citizens are innocent until proven guilty (in a court of law, not in the court of opinion). This is what makes America so different from every other nation: we are a nation of laws, not a nation of men. The burden of proof likes with the Government to prove their case that the accused individual is guilty of breaking some law or statute. Since Snowden has never been convicted of breaking any laws, he cannot be treated like a convicted felon. For the President of the US used his position to blackmail, threaten and intimidate foreign nations is an unprecedented abuse of power the likes of which have never been seen in our nation's history.